I haven't been back long at all, have only played a handful of games, but more than once I've seen people winning games by simply outnumbering their opponents, on purpose.

My corp-mates and I were just playing against Shadow and his cronies, and the game was stalemated, even though two of our guys were wasting their turns offline so it was basically five against three or three and a half, we were still keeping them out.

When I used to play, whether twenty years ago or five years ago, mega-corping was almost never a problem, because the good players all knew each other, and if you mega-corped you were shunned. Not only that, but what's the fun in winning that way? There are no bragging rights, and that's normally the only prize for winning a game of trade wars. It wasn't against the rules in this game, but as far as I remember it never has been - people have always just been decent enough not to do it.

I'm pretty astonished, not really because Shadow chose to act in such a blatantly unsportsmanlike manner - I'd heard that's how he was so wasn't really surprised about it - what surprised me was that his corp went along with it, and presumably whoever he brought in to do the extra mothing, if it wasn't a dupe, went along with it as well. I won't name the ones I know, in case they didn't go along with it - there's a possibility Shadow was acting alone. I'm not saying they all cheated, but.... wtf? Nobody does this. It's like yelling at your golf opponent when they swing, or something like that. It's just not done.

Is this just standard practice now? If it is, you guys are really hammering the last nail into the coffin of this community. Why would anyone play if they always get outnumbered and thus never have any hope of winning?

Tue Jun 12, 2018 11:01 pm

LoneStar

Commander

Joined: Fri Jun 09, 2006 2:00 amPosts: 1305Location: Canada

Re: Megacorping and outnumbering standard practice?

I think that is why someone, very wise, invented a long long time ago, a little something called: Rules

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_________________-----------------------------= QUANTUM Computing 101: 15 = 3 x 5 ... 48% of the time.-=There are 10 types of people in the world: Those that understand Binary and those who do not -=If Oil is made from Dinosaurs, and Plastic is made from Oil... are plastic Dinosaurs made from real Dinosaurs? -=I like to keep my friends and my enemies rich, and wait to see which is which - Tony Stark

Wed Jun 13, 2018 5:52 am

Shadow

Ensign

Joined: Tue Dec 17, 2002 3:00 amPosts: 296Location: Virginia

Re: Megacorping and outnumbering standard practice?

Astrochimp wrote:

I haven't been back long at all, have only played a handful of games, but more than once I've seen people winning games by simply outnumbering their opponents, on purpose.

My corp-mates and I were just playing against Shadow and his cronies, and the game was stalemated, even though two of our guys were wasting their turns offline so it was basically five against three or three and a half, we were still keeping them out.

Perhaps it would be helpful to explain the actual situation.

We started this game with two of us against two of you. Immediately you added a third. We added a third, you added a fourth, etc, until the teams maxed out at five on five. For at least half of the truce, you had one more player than us, yet you still were vastly behind in resources due to poor strategy - inexplicably choosing to sdt in a low turn blue game.

So, then truce ends, and skipping over the ongoing debate over whether your team violated truce (you did inarguably violate the spirit of the truce, though perhaps not the letter of the published rules), your players stop showing up and remaining online. My team remains online, so sure, we had more players than you, because you couldn't get your team to stick around. Is that our fault?

Quote:

When I used to play, whether twenty years ago or five years ago, mega-corping was almost never a problem, because the good players all knew each other, and if you mega-corped you were shunned. Not only that, but what's the fun in winning that way? There are no bragging rights, and that's normally the only prize for winning a game of trade wars. It wasn't against the rules in this game, but as far as I remember it never has been - people have always just been decent enough not to do it.

So let's repeat - it wasn't against the rules in this game, and in fact we didn't even really mega corp because there is no other corp. I invited one additional player in to moth you mostly to get you to flip out and rage quit, which my teammates will all tell you is exactly what I told them you would do just prior to bringing that player in (and yes, I did consult with them).

That other player, by the way, has not returned and probably won't - it was purely a tactic to rile you up and attempt to make the game actually interesting, since your strategy, by your own public admission, was to try to win by attrition -- staying in your bubble and using all your corp's turns to reload planets every day, and hoping we would get bored and stop mothing every day before you got bored and stopped reloading planets.

Also, by your own public admission, you had no other hope of winning this game and had chosen the strategy of boring us to death as your last resort.

Quote:

I'm pretty astonished, not really because Shadow chose to act in such a blatantly unsportsmanlike manner - I'd heard that's how he was so wasn't really surprised about it

I play aggressively within the parameters of the rules, which as you have already admitted, we did. I don't apologize for that. This is trade wars, not trade hugs.

Quote:

and presumably whoever he brought in to do the extra mothing, if it wasn't a dupe, went along with it as well.

It wasn't a dupe. SK will verify that.

Quote:

I won't name the ones I know, in case they didn't go along with it - there's a possibility Shadow was acting alone. I'm not saying they all cheated, but.... wtf? Nobody does this. It's like yelling at your golf opponent when they swing, or something like that. It's just not done.

Um, no. It's more like taunting your golf opponent back after they have told you that they know they can't win so they are going to drive the cart around in circles until you give up and go drink beer in the clubhouse. And them being so irritated by your taunts, they throw their clubs in the lake and go home.

Quote:

Is this just standard practice now? If it is, you guys are really hammering the last nail into the coffin of this community. Why would anyone play if they always get outnumbered and thus never have any hope of winning?

Well sure, we probably should have quit when you had us outnumbered for the first half of the game, but your strategy was failing so we figured we still had a chance. Then I almost quit when you decided to turn on cannons during truce, and got away with it, but we still figured we'd play it out.

And to repeat, we had one person come in and throw three moths in one time for one day and you rage quit. And that person probably isn't coming back now because there's really no need. But yeah, we vastly outnumbered you with our 5-man corp versus your 5-man corp!

I haven't been back long at all, have only played a handful of games, but more than once I've seen people winning games by simply outnumbering their opponents, on purpose.

My corp-mates and I were just playing against Shadow and his cronies, and the game was stalemated, even though two of our guys were wasting their turns offline so it was basically five against three or three and a half, we were still keeping them out.

Perhaps it would be helpful to explain the actual situation.

We started this game with two of us against two of you. Immediately you added a third. We added a third, you added a fourth, etc, until the teams maxed out at five on five. For at least half of the truce, you had one more player than us, yet you still were vastly behind in resources due to poor strategy - inexplicably choosing to sdt in a low turn blue game.

So, then truce ends, and skipping over the ongoing debate over whether your team violated truce (you did inarguably violate the spirit of the truce, though perhaps not the letter of the published rules), your players stop showing up and remaining online. My team remains online, so sure, we had more players than you, because you couldn't get your team to stick around. Is that our fault?

Quote:

When I used to play, whether twenty years ago or five years ago, mega-corping was almost never a problem, because the good players all knew each other, and if you mega-corped you were shunned. Not only that, but what's the fun in winning that way? There are no bragging rights, and that's normally the only prize for winning a game of trade wars. It wasn't against the rules in this game, but as far as I remember it never has been - people have always just been decent enough not to do it.

So let's repeat - it wasn't against the rules in this game, and in fact we didn't even really mega corp because there is no other corp. I invited one additional player in to moth you mostly to get you to flip out and rage quit, which my teammates will all tell you is exactly what I told them you would do just prior to bringing that player in (and yes, I did consult with them).

That other player, by the way, has not returned and probably won't - it was purely a tactic to rile you up and attempt to make the game actually interesting, since your strategy, by your own public admission, was to try to win by attrition -- staying in your bubble and using all your corp's turns to reload planets every day, and hoping we would get bored and stop mothing every day before you got bored and stopped reloading planets.

Also, by your own public admission, you had no other hope of winning this game and had chosen the strategy of boring us to death as your last resort.

Quote:

I'm pretty astonished, not really because Shadow chose to act in such a blatantly unsportsmanlike manner - I'd heard that's how he was so wasn't really surprised about it

I play aggressively within the parameters of the rules, which as you have already admitted, we did. I don't apologize for that. This is trade wars, not trade hugs.

Quote:

and presumably whoever he brought in to do the extra mothing, if it wasn't a dupe, went along with it as well.

It wasn't a dupe. SK will verify that.

Quote:

I won't name the ones I know, in case they didn't go along with it - there's a possibility Shadow was acting alone. I'm not saying they all cheated, but.... wtf? Nobody does this. It's like yelling at your golf opponent when they swing, or something like that. It's just not done.

Um, no. It's more like taunting your golf opponent back after they have told you that they know they can't win so they are going to drive the cart around in circles until you give up and go drink beer in the clubhouse. And them being so irritated by your taunts, they throw their clubs in the lake and go home.

Quote:

Is this just standard practice now? If it is, you guys are really hammering the last nail into the coffin of this community. Why would anyone play if they always get outnumbered and thus never have any hope of winning?

Well sure, we probably should have quit when you had us outnumbered for the first half of the game, but your strategy was failing so we figured we still had a chance. Then I almost quit when you decided to turn on cannons during truce, and got away with it, but we still figured we'd play it out.

And to repeat, we had one person come in and throw three moths in one time for one day and you rage quit. And that person probably isn't coming back now because there's really no need. But yeah, we vastly outnumbered you with our 5-man corp versus your 5-man corp!

Quote:

Then I almost quit when you decided to turn on cannons during truce, and got away with it, but we still figured we'd play it out.

Everyone knows this is a blatant lie. I did nothing of the kind. Thunder Wolf had is cannons on BEFORE joining our corp because he's not familiar with truces, and it wasn't against the rules. You used that as an excuse to act like a complete Butt.

None of this is any excuse for what you did, Shadow. You're a pathetic loser with no honor. I can't believe you did this just to win this game. I want nothing to do with you or your corpies, neither as friends nor as enemies, ever again, which probably means I won't be playing any more trade wars.

Wed Jun 13, 2018 8:30 am

Shadow

Ensign

Joined: Tue Dec 17, 2002 3:00 amPosts: 296Location: Virginia

Re: Megacorping and outnumbering standard practice?

Astrochimp wrote:

None of this is any excuse for what you did, Shadow. You're a pathetic loser with no honor. I can't believe you did this just to win this game. I want nothing to do with you or your corpies, neither as friends nor as enemies, ever again, which probably means I won't be playing any more trade wars.

It's pretty ironic that a guy who is corping with the people he's corping with is questioning MY honor. But I won't name those people in this forum, because I'm better than that. They know who they are - at least, the one in particular that I'm thinking of. The one who just last week was saying to me "what we did was OK even though we know it was a violation because we followed the letter of the rules!"

By the way, your corpies actually defended really well last night after you rage quit. In fact, we actually played tradewars for the first time since truce ended - we got some of the planets down but they got two of us out for the day and captured a bunch of ships.

It's funny how you quitting turned an intentional stalemate into an actual game for the first time. If that's your impact on the game, then I'm not upset that you won't be playing anymore.

I just have 2 put my 2 cents in. I am in this game, and one of the characters. I hope that you both can work this out, and nobody quits playing. You're both amazing players, and both deserve kudos. I have had more fun losing this game, then I have had in a long time. I've never even seen this strategy before of claiming a 2,000 sector bubble, and building a massive teamwork building base. That actually held up being the underdogs against you. You see it as being wussies, but I thank Astro for showing us something new, and teaching us how to use scripts we hadn't even used or knew what they did. I look forward to playing with all of you for the remainder of this game, and in the future.. lookout.. as I figure this out again you're in trouble.. Especially if I ever find my lost scripts directory Peace you guys, and please just let this go, and pummel each other some more.. I know you want us to grid, but we're not there yet lol. We will be more, and more competition for you though as time goes on.

I just have 2 put my 2 cents in. I am in this game, and one of the characters. I hope that you both can work this out, and nobody quits playing. You're both amazing players, and both deserve kudos. I have had more fun losing this game, then I have had in a long time. I've never even seen this strategy before of claiming a 2,000 sector bubble, and building a massive teamwork building base. That actually held up being the underdogs against you. You see it as being wussies, but I thank Astro for showing us something new, and teaching us how to use scripts we hadn't even used or knew what they did. I look forward to playing with all of you for the remainder of this game, and in the future.. lookout.. as I figure this out again you're in trouble.. Especially if I ever find my lost scripts directory Peace you guys, and please just let this go, and pummel each other some more.. I know you want us to grid, but we're not there yet lol. We will be more, and more competition for you though as time goes on.

I've enjoyed playing against you, and on your server, Zeus. I have nothing against you or your teammates (well, maybe one of them, but there's a lot of history behind that). And despite Astrochimp's overreaction, I think it's been mostly a fun game. We're enjoying it, and it's not over yet.

As a game op. Rules/Truce games are Problematic if not impossible. until some truce modes are set into the software itself. since I've been playing trade wars has always had unwritten rules for these kinda games. like no duping, no mega corping, etc... and the game op(ME) is given the impossible task of playing ref. As a rule I don't get involoved unless I am asked to. and when you make ruling your always going to tick someone off.

In this game, the one issue I was asked to rule on, a player and entered another players truce protected base. and got blown up for his trouble. for me it was very simple. should the player have entered the base? No. End of story. ANYTHING that happens to the player at that time is your fault.(infact this is going to be the new rule for all future truce games.) Now should the cannons have been on? Prob. not. But the truce was a few hours from ending and the player was getting ready. My Advice would be for you scripters to write a gridding script that holo scans. My perma corp has one.

Astro, you are right about there being little or no honor left in these aggressive games. there are a few people who look at the rules and say if its no rule against it then it must be okay. or look for any hole to exploit. But I can use my builders game as an example that hope is not lost. those players who are mostly old school. follow and play by the rules and if someone gets out of line they correct it. In fact the only time i have ever had issues in that game is when an aggressive player comes in and starts messing it all up.

For future truce games. I will not be relying on people to be honorable and will right up rules for everything I can think of. since no one seams to want to follow the "unwritten rules". Now I will prob. miss something and that will cause more drama down the road but I will deal with it then.

To be fair you have to admit that there's a larger issue here: People spend x-number of days building in anticipation of a battle, people find a large Bubble and 'turtle' inside... and the game becomes an instant grudge match (which invariably happens when experienced players face-off), days/weeks/months pass before one Corp gives up and walks away from the game; then remaining player(s) to leave their Turtle Shell. So, of course rules become important.... as people look for ways to end the mindless stalemate.

I'm willing to bet, that if you host a Truce game with no Gold/Mega Bubbles, limited Cols, fewer planets/sector, Planets that are not maxed out on Ore/Fighters... AstroChimp, et al., would not play because turtling would be next to impossible.

Thanks for Hosting a great Server!

P.S. War isn't suppose to have rules. One side 'wins' be default simply because the opponent is completely & totally annihilated! Not because they followed 'rules.' That is the nature of War! If you want to find Honour: suck it up; pick a side, fight till the bitter end.

_________________-----------------------------= QUANTUM Computing 101: 15 = 3 x 5 ... 48% of the time.-=There are 10 types of people in the world: Those that understand Binary and those who do not -=If Oil is made from Dinosaurs, and Plastic is made from Oil... are plastic Dinosaurs made from real Dinosaurs? -=I like to keep my friends and my enemies rich, and wait to see which is which - Tony Stark

Thu Jun 14, 2018 5:58 am

Star Killer

Lieutenant Commander

Joined: Wed May 01, 2013 11:28 pmPosts: 909Location: Rural Indiana

Re: Megacorping and outnumbering standard practice?

LoneStar wrote:

P.S. War isn't suppose to have rules. One side 'wins' be default simply because the opponent is completely & totally annihilated! Not because they followed 'rules.' That is the nature of War! If you want to find Honour: suck it up; pick a side, fight till the bitter end.

Yeah I dont think you want to be lecturing me on what a war is. someone who has been in some real ones. there are rules there too and somethings you just dont do. wrong move on your part.

As a game op. Rules/Truce games are Problematic if not impossible. until some truce modes are set into the software itself. since I've been playing trade wars has always had unwritten rules for these kinda games. like no duping, no mega corping, etc... and the game op(ME) is given the impossible task of playing ref. As a rule I don't get involoved unless I am asked to. and when you make ruling your always going to tick someone off.

SNIPPED

sk

I agree with you 99% when you write problematic. It has always been my opinion that it is 100% impossible. CBS228 (Colin Stagner, if memory serves, CEO of the PermaCorp "Fugitives from Fate") wrote an essay on the futility of having rules that the game itself does not enforce .https://www.thestardock.com/fugitives/oldstuff.html-then search:"No More Unenforceable Rules!"

Great article.

Kav

Thu Jun 14, 2018 2:53 pm

LoneStar

Commander

Joined: Fri Jun 09, 2006 2:00 amPosts: 1305Location: Canada

Re: Megacorping and outnumbering standard practice?

Star Killer wrote:

Yeah I dont think you want to be lecturing me on what a war is. someone who has been in some real ones. there are rules there too and somethings you just dont do. wrong move on your part.

sk

I have nothing but the utmost respect for people who've served. I myself was enlisted for all of 8wks, till I realized that my country doesn't really take its military seriously --thanks mostly due to the fact that the U.S.A. is our neighbour.

Please don't think that I'm lecturing. Those 'things' that you 'don't do', I'd wager have nothing to do with TradeWars. Is there a rule in War that says: one side cannot enlist the help and support of an ally; outflank an Enemy; employ surprise attacks; use a Killbox; use advanced weapons/tactics no-one else has; .... ? on and on it goes. We're not talking about killing Woman & Children, taking prisoners, etc.

Remember that the issue here is the enlisting of help to break a stalemate. I haven't been in many tournaments.. but every single one that I've played in, which consisted of more than 2 teams, resulted in one form of mega corping or another.. anyone who says differently is either ignorant or a liar.

_________________-----------------------------= QUANTUM Computing 101: 15 = 3 x 5 ... 48% of the time.-=There are 10 types of people in the world: Those that understand Binary and those who do not -=If Oil is made from Dinosaurs, and Plastic is made from Oil... are plastic Dinosaurs made from real Dinosaurs? -=I like to keep my friends and my enemies rich, and wait to see which is which - Tony Stark

I haven't read the link yet, but I just wanted to put in my two cents (I will read when I have more time).

I consider "No Mega-Corping" to be an unenforceable rule.

1. You would have to be able to monitor the activities of all players, at least any activities allowing sharing resources (i.e. dropping assets on a planing that are later picked up by another corp. It really wouldn't be hard to add this to the program, but there is no way to know as it stands now.

2. Coordinated attacks were two pr more corps attack the same opponent. I don't even know if this is considered mega-corping, but I remember a particular tournament where the winning corps decided to call themselves co-winners. No resources are being shared, but no corp has a chance against two or more opponents teaming together.

3. If you consider information sharing illegal, then there is no way you can monitor communications that occur outside the game. Warp maps and base locations can easily be shared and there is no way to monitor this.

As for truce games, I refuse to run any because of the problems involved.

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